A Life Like Mine (2 page)

“Come on, ladies. Let’s go get some food,” I led them to the concession stand where we picked up some munchies.

“Hey girls! Sorry we’re late, Jack’s car wasn’t working,” Betty gave me a hug and then proceeded to hug the rest of the girls as Jack did the same. Nobody thought it was weird that Betty and Jack came together because they were neighbors and always arrived jointly.

“Where are the guys?” Jack looked inquiringly at me.  I pointed them out and he went to join them as all the girls started to talk.

“So, come on, Bet, when are you going to start dating Jack?” Jennifer didn’t beat around the bush.

“What are you talking about? I could never go out with Jack! We’ve been friends for so long, and it just wouldn’t be right,” Betty started to blush.

“Well, then do you mind if I partake? That is one fine hunk o’ man!” Jennifer laughed, as we giggled. We all knew that she was kidding. Nobody had ever gone out with Jack because he was way too picky. He’d like you for a day, and then he’d reconsider it! I remembered when Betty had actually liked Jack, but never told him. That was a smart move, but I could never tell if she ever truly stopped liking him. As I thought about this, we all headed for the bathroom.

              Most guys tend to wonder why girls travel in packs. Well, for one thing it’s more fun, but for another it’s probably safer.  It seems that rapes and stuff happen a lot more than we’d like to think. Random story…Have you ever been just sitting in your room when your mom comes in, and you feel totally invaded? Well, this was one of those days where she decided to tell me every horror story about every rape known to man. I know that she cares and all, but every time I go out she always has to say, “Be careful! There might be rapists lurking about!” It just gets really annoying. Well, back to the bathroom. Guys act as if girls do that all the time. The only time they do that is usually when guys are around. That’s a sign that one of the girls wants to talk to the girls about one of the guys without them knowing about it. And sorry, there aren’t any couches or TV’s in the bathroom unless you’re at a really swanky place, but then both bathrooms would have them.  I’m sorry, guys, if I ruined your little weird fantasies or ideas of why girls really go to the bathroom and what’s in the bathroom.

              Then we headed back to where the guys were to see that they hadn’t moved an inch since we last saw them. I expected that though because they were guys and what normal guy wouldn’t stare as long as he could before his eyes popped out?

              “So, did we miss anything?” I asked with as much sarcasm as I could.

              “Yeah! You missed the best show in the world! Although, it’s going to get even better! Lena and the cheerleaders are doing a halftime show,” All the guys cheered and gave each other high fives. I smiled and shook my head when suddenly I had to get away from my friends, and fast.

              “I’ll be right back I have to go and get something,” I stood up to head towards the cheerleaders.

              “Why? What are you going to do?” Ben gave me a curious look.

              “I think I lost some of my money near the concession stand. I’m going to go see if I can go find it,” I felt like a fraud.

              “I didn’t see you drop any money, Ash,” Betty was not helping by making it even harder for me to get away. I flashed her a dirty look, which she seemed to understand pretty well, and then I started to walk down to the concession stand.

              “Ash, there’s no way the money is still going to be there. You must have dropped it about ten minutes ago. Somebody must have already found it by now,” Allie reasoned.

              “Well, then they might have turned it in and I can get it back,” I ran as fast as I could to avoid any more arguments on why I should stay. That didn’t make any sense to me. Normally, they didn’t care when I came or left. Why did they have to care as soon as I had an excellent plan to get back at Lena? It’s kind of funny how it doesn’t matter what I’m doing every other minute of the day, but as soon as I actually want to leave they disagree for as long as they can. If I didn’t know any better I’d say that they had suspicions about what I was going to do. There’s no way they could have known unless they could read my mind, because I hadn’t told anyone what I wanted to do. Although I was really itching to, I figured as soon as I did, the guys would stop me from doing anything to their little goddess. If only guys followed things other than their hormones. Well, not all guys do that, but still most of them do, otherwise they wouldn’t be such perverts talking about one thing all the time!

              I’ve never been so excited about doing anything like this in my entire life! A lot of people I walked past on the way to the cheerleaders were probably thinking that I was high or something from the look on my face.

              I had arrived by the cheerleaders when the buzzer went off signaling that it was the end of the second quarter. Half time!  That meant that I only had a few minutes to figure out how to sabotage Lena’s little half time show. Uh-oh. Incoming, sleaze-bucket alert!

              “Do you smell something foul Liz?” Lena walked up to me.

              “Yeah it seems to be coming over by-” Liz pointed her manicured index finger at me, dropped it and said, “Oh I’m sorry, Ash, I don’t want to make you uncomfortable, but there’s a huge stench coming off of you. There’s this thing called the shower. It’s a scientific miracle. You should use it some time.”

              “Wow. You used the word stench. That’s a big word for you!”

              “Oh shut up. It’s not as if you’re a straight A student,” Liz bored her icy eyes into me.

              “Do you agree that most things we learn in life come from real life experiences?” I looked at Liz with the same icy stare.

              “Whatever, sure.” I could tell Liz said this with a lot of confusion.

              “Well unless you learned it from Lena, I don’t see how you couldn’t have learned the word “stench” from anything other than that lotion you wear.”

              “Ugh! This is
Devotion
, you obviously have no taste!” Liz’s sapphire eyes looked like marbles. I thought she was going to break down and cry!

              “Then whoever created it must have been devoted to a garbage dump because that’s what you smell like,” It looked like Liz was going to tackle me right there, because a lot of guys started to make a circle around us. They probably thought we were going to strip down and mud wrestle. Why they would get that idea, I don’t know.

              “Come on, we have a show to do! Ten minutes and counting!” Lena pulled on Liz’s bony arm and dragged her across the field.  I looked over at them to see if they were still looking at me, which they weren’t. I swung into action looking around for something to use. I saw some of Liz’s lotion! I looked around for something other than lotion to fill it with. To the right of me was a shed. I opened it up and looked around. There was paint remover, water, and…. SUPER GLUE! Perfect. This was excellent. I ran over and poured out the lotion, it really did smell awful. Then I put the super glue in it.  I was careful to not get any of it on myself. I put the bottle back where I found it and headed back towards my friends. If only I had a camera!

              The half time show music started, and I saw Liz and another girl putting on the “lotion!” They started to dance around in their little outfits with all their stuff hanging out, when Lena jumped up into Liz and the other girl’s hands. They held her up while she stood with her arms up in triumphant pose.  She tried to jump up and then be caught by the girls, but she couldn’t move. She leapt up, losing her balance, bringing Liz and the other girl down with her. The music stopped, and shocked silence passed over the crowd. The girls kept struggling to separate themselves from Lena’s feet, but no matter what they did, they were stuck!

              “A little help here!” Lena shouted as everyone started to laugh hysterically. I looked up in the stands to see all my friends holding their sides because they were laughing so hard.  I smiled from my victory.

              “Lena! Stop moving! You’re hurting my hands,” The other girl screamed.

              “What did you two idiots do? You will not hear the end of this, as of now you are off the squad!” Lena screeched pulling grass out of her hair. “Look at me! I have grass stains all over my new uniform!

              “You can’t kick me off the squad,” Liz challenged.

              “Oh yes I can! I got you on and I can take you off,” Lena narrowed her eyes. Everyone had quieted by this time to listen to what they were saying as the coaches ran onto the field to try and assist the girls.

              “Unless you want everyone to know all of the surgeries you’ve had I suggest you keep me on the squad!” The other girl sat their silently listening to Liz and Lena verbally duke it out.

              Lena gasped, “You wouldn’t!”

              “Oh wouldn’t I?”

              “You are the most wretched person I’ve ever met!”

              “Oh please! You’re no picnic yourself. Besides it’s not my fault that we’re stuck to you!”

              “Oh yeah, and whose fault is it then?” Lena looked down to meet Liz’s eyes.

              “I don’t know! Maybe it was something in my lotion. Maybe we could sue the company for a lot of money or something.”

              “Money won’t bring back my good reputation, Liz!”

              “Give me a break! You have as good a reputation as Jerry Springers’ guests!”

              “You take that back you tramp!” Lena kicked Liz, which in a way made it look like Liz was hitting herself with her own hand. They started to hit and smack each other. This made the crowd go nuts. One side was rooting for Lena. The other was rooting for Liz. And the poor other cheerleader was trying to stay out of it, but her hands wouldn’t let her. The coaches finally came to break it up. No matter what they did, they couldn’t get the girls to stop fighting.

              “I bet you 10 bucks that as soon as Liz is free she’s going to pile drive Lena onto a table!” I could hear Big Al challenging the rest of my friends up with the rest of the crowd.

              “I don’t know, man! Lena’s got a lot of anger pent up in that little body of hers!” Ben replied. “I’ll take that bet.”

              “Could you please hurry up? I have a party to go to!” Lena demanded. She took her shoes off and stomped off the field, but when she saw the applause, she smiled and waved. “Oh, it was all a plan of mine!” I just looked at her and laughed.

              The football game pretty much was over after that. The football player’s went on and played, but everyone was too busy watching the doctor’s trying to disconnect the other girls from Lena’s shoes.  I kept walking past them trying to listen in on what Lena and Liz were arguing about now.

              “You know it might not have been my hands! It could have been your feet!” Liz looked at Lena accusingly.

              “I don’t have to listen to this! The only reason I’m still here is because those shoes cost a fortune and I need medical attention. I ache all over!”

              “Oh who are you trying to kid! Those are 100% Payless.”

              Lena huffed, “You can’t prove anything.”

              “Can’t I? I believe there’s a Payless price tag inside this shoe!”

              Ripping it off Lena replied, “Not anymore, there isn’t!”

              “What are we spewing about?” Liz’s face softened.

              “I don’t even know anymore,” Lena giggled. “You’re the one with my shoe on your hand.” They started laughing hysterically; sadly I think they were friends again. I liked it a lot more when they were enemies. It was so much funnier.

              “Who do you really think did this?” Liz looked at Lena.

              “I don’t know. What did you do right before we went to start our routine?”

              “Well, I put on deodorant, spritzed on some perfume, put lotion on my hands so they wouldn’t chaff…”

              “Liz! What lotion did you use?”

“
Devotion
is the only type I use. You know the one that Ashley-Oh my gosh! What a little wench!” At that instant they both looked around searching for me. I, of course, was ready and willing for this great attention. I started to whistle really loudly so that they could hear me. They were so stupid though that they didn’t even notice that I was there.

Finally I yelled, “Oh girls!”  They swung their heads around and gave me the coldest stare I’d ever had the pleasure of seeing from those two ditzbags. I winked and waved saying, “It looks like I was wrong, Liz.”

“About what? That you do actually smell and I was right?” Liz sneered at me.

“No.”

“Oh? What then? You realize that my taste was superior to yours?”

“No, yours is still inferior.”

“But you just said…”

“Whoever created that perfume was devoted to two things.”

“Beauty and Splendor?” Lena asked with mock curiosity.

“Well for one thing they were devoted to your shoes, Lena.” Lena looked at me with this oh-you-think-you’re-so-funny stare.